he tipped his head, as casual as a passing neighbor. Then his gaze returned to the Marquise, and his expression hardened.
The executioner’s saber sliced down. A sigh rose from the crowd as the Marquise’s head thumped onto the platform. Nicolette didn’t see it fall. Instead, she stared, transfixed, as a yellow fog rose from the Marquise’s body. The fog twisted and grew dense, taking on the form of a young woman.
The angel lifted his sword, and his voice rang out, as clear and melodious as the bells of Notre Dame. “Marie-Madeline d’Aubrey de Brinvilliers, for your crimes, you have been judged.”
As he swung that huge sword, the spirit flowing from the Marquise’s body threw back its head and laughed.
“I am not the Marquise, fool,” it spat.
The angel’s brows knitted in a look of confusion as human as the nod he’d given Nicolette. But the sword was already in flight, cleaving toward the ghost.
The spirit’s lips twisted. “You have no jurisdiction over—”
As the sword struck the spirit, it let out a scream that made Nicolette double over, hands to her ears. All around her, people jostled and pushed, trying to get a closer look at the Marquise’s body as they set it afire, oblivious to the screams.
Nicolette raised her head. There, on the platform, stood the angel, with the spirit skewered on his sword. The thing twisted and shrieked and cursed, but the angel only smiled. Then they were gone.
1
“COME ON,” SAVANNAH WHISPERED, TUGGING THE young man’s hand.
She climbed a wooden fence into the backyard of a narrow two-story house.
“Watch out for the roses,” she said as his feet threatened to land in the border. “We gotta come this way or the old bugger next door will bitch about me having friends over when no one’s home.”
“Yeah,” the boy said. “I get shit from my folks about that, too.”
“Oh, Paige and Lucas don’t care, as long as I clean up and don’t have any monster parties. Well, they might care if they found out I was bringing a guy over. But if that old man sees me having friends over? He starts telling people that Paige and Lucas are crappy guardians, shit like that. Makes me want to—” She swallowed her next words and shrugged. “Tell him off or something.”
I was less than a half-dozen paces behind, but they never turned around, never even peered over their shoulders. Sometimes that really pisses me off. Sure, all teenagers ignore their mothers. And, sure, Savannah had a good excuse, since I’d been dead for three years. Still, you’d think we’d have a deeper connection, that she’d somehow hear me, if only as a voice in her head that said “Don’t listen to that girl” or “That boy’s not worth the trouble.” Never happened, though. In life, I’d been one of the most powerful women in the supernatural world, an Aspicio half-demon and witch master of the black arts. Now I was a third-rate ghost who couldn’t even contact her own daughter. My afterlife sucked.
Savannah took the boy through the lean-to, dragged him away from Lucas’s latest motorcycle restoration project and into the house. The back door swung shut in my face. I walked through it.
They shed their shoes, then climbed the small set of stairs from the landing to the kitchen. Savannah headed straight for the fridge and started grabbing sandwich fixings. I walked past them, through the dining room, into the living room, and settled into my favorite spot, a butter yellow leather armchair.
I’d done the right thing, sending Savannah to Paige. Quite possibly the smartest thing I’d ever done. Of course, if I’d been really smart, Savannah wouldn’t have needed anyone to take her in. I wouldn’t have been in such a hellfire rush to escape that compound, wouldn’t have gotten myself killed, wouldn’t have endangered my little girl—
Yes, I’d screwed up, but I was going to fix that now. I’d promised to look after my daughter, and I would…just as soon as I figured out how.
Savannah and her friend took their sandwiches into the dining room. I leaned forward to peer around the corner, just a quick check in case…In case what, Eve? In case she chokes on a pickle? I silenced the too-familiar inner voice and started to settle back into my chair when I noticed a third person in the dining room. In a chair pulled up to the front window sat a gray-haired woman, her head bent, shoulders racked with silent sobs.